Black Christian News Network | Wordpress Edition

Arkansas was poised Thursday to conduct its first execution since 2005 after officials scrapped the third of eight lethal injections that had been planned before the end of the month amid court challenges.

The U.S. Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote rejected appeals that would have halted Ledell Lee’s execution, but more were expected Thursday night.

A ruling from the state Supreme Court allowing officials to use a lethal injection drug that a supplier says was obtained by misleading the company cleared the way for Arkansas to proceed to execute Lee on Thursday night, although he still had requests for stays pending with a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court. A federal appeals court delayed Lee’s execution until 8:15 p.m. central time, to give them time to review his case.

Represented by the Innocence Project and the ACLU, Lee’s attorney filed the lawsuit once the Arkansas Supreme Court denied an emergency stay motion, CBS affiliate WTHV reports. The civil rights lawsuit is to allow more time for new DNA testing to be done in his case.

“It is inappropriate for the state to rush to execute before a defendant’s innocence claim can be properly examined,” said Nina Morrison, a senior staff attorney with the Innocence Project. “All we are asking for is a hearing on Mr. Lee’s claim that modern DNA testing can prove his innocence.”

Arkansas dropped plans to execute a second inmate, Stacey Johnson, on the same day after the state Supreme Court said it wouldn’t reconsider his stay, which was issued so Johnson could seek more DNA tests in hopes of proving his innocence.

The state originally set four double executions over an 11-day period in April. The eight executions would have been the most by a state in such a compressed period since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The state says the executions need to be carried out before its supply of one lethal injection drug, midazolam, expires on April 30. Three executions were canceled because of court decisions, and legal rulings have put at least one of the other five in doubt.